RIO DE JANEIRO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Brazilian federal police chief Alexandre Saraiva was demoted last year after leading the nation’s largest crackdown on illegal logging in the Amazon. He wanted to protect the country’s rainforests in the political arena, so he ran for the House of Representatives.
But Saraiba and three environmental officials looking for seats in Thursday’s parliamentary elections were all defeated. Many of the winning candidates have ties to President Bolsonaro’s government and have been criticized by activists for misappropriating environmental policies.
“My conclusion is that the Brazilian people don’t really care about the Amazon,” Saraiva said. During the campaign, the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) candidate claimed it was his “civic duty” to stop deforestation, which has skyrocketed under the far-right Bolsonaro government.
In the presidential elections, former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva got 48.4% of the vote, while incumbent Jair Bolsonaro won 43.2%, showing better performance than predicted by the polls.
The ballot between the first two candidates is scheduled for October 30th. Lula has pledged to increase environmental protection while promoting economic development in the Amazon region, while Bolsonaro has supported the expansion of commercial agriculture and mining development in protected areas.
The elections are seen internationally as an important opportunity to stop the rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest and halt climate change, the destruction of nature and the loss of wildlife.
The ruling Liberal Party (PL) of Bolsonaro was the biggest winner of the parliamentary elections by 513 seats, winning 99 seats. Lula’s Labor Party (PT) won 68 seats.
Even more surprising, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party won 13 of the 27 seats up for grabs for re-election in the federal Senate. Lula’s Labor Party won only nine seats.
Winners include Bolsonaro Vice President Hamilton Mourao and five cabinet ministers, including former Agriculture Minister Teresa Cristina.
Many of these winners support Mr. Bolsonaro’s policies that have led to increased deforestation in the Amazon, expanding agriculture and resource extraction.
Carlos Minck, who served as environment minister in Lula’s government from 2008 to 2010, would have a strong foothold if Bolsonaro were re-elected and could pass failed legislation in his first term.
“Bolsonaro is the greatest environmental enemy,” said Mink, who ran for the Socialist Party and was re-elected to the Rio de Janeiro parliament.
While the Bolsonaro government has allowed large-scale expansion of farms, ranches, and mines in the Amazon and other natural forest areas of Brazil, Bolsonaro himself has repeatedly justified his environmental policies.
Mink said he was surprised by the overwhelming victory of liberal candidate Ricardo Salles, who had previously served as environment minister under Bolsonaro.
Salles was elected to the House of Representatives, but his number of votes was about half that of former presidential candidate Marina Silva, who ran for the Brazilian Sustainability Network Party (REDE) constituency in Sao Paulo. and was elected to the House of Representatives. she was three times that.
Silva, an environmentalist of Amazonian origin, was minister of the environment in the Lula government from 2003 to 2008. Deforestation in the Amazon slowed by almost half during this period.
Since Bolsonaro took office, deforestation in the Amazon has risen to the highest level in 15 years, with 7,135 square kilometers cleared between January and August of this year, according to government satellite data. This is a 19% increase over the same period last year.
In 2020, Salles was criticized by international environmentalists for recommending governments to ease environmental restrictions while the public was focused on the pandemic.
Salles resigned from the government in June 2021 after being investigated for obstructing a police investigation into illegal logging in the Amazon.
The big win increases the chances of Salles getting a seat on the Congressional Environment Committee, according to José Niemeyer, a political analyst who studies international relations at Rio de Janeiro’s Ivumec University. He could also become chairman of the committee.
This committee is responsible for determining which environmental legislation is submitted to Congress for vote.
“Sales will have a lot of power,” Niemeyer said.
Political experts, however, say the president is ultimately in control of environmental policy. The president has the power to approve or reject legislation passed by Congress.
In his manifesto, Lula has a “net-zero” deforestation policy. At the final presidential debate ahead of Sunday’s elections, Lula pledged to ban small illegal mining and rehabilitate degraded ranches for agriculture instead of opening new ones.
During his presidency, Bolsonaro kept his electoral promise not to approve new indigenous territories. He also introduced a bill to legalize mining development in these areas. He also supports a bill to expand the conversion of illegally occupied public land into private property.
Bolsonaro said in his candidacy for re-election that he would strike a balance between “protecting the environment and sustainable and fair economic growth for all”.
The former president is known for his superior negotiating skills, while environmentalists say Congress could resist the environmental policies it could propose if elected and analyzes that it will be able to persuade centrists on his side, including members of the Liberal Party. who appreciate pragmatism.
Few candidates were elected to Congress for environmental protection reasons. But Brenda Britto, an associate researcher at the Amazon Institute for Humans and the Environment (Imazon), a nonprofit that tracks deforestation, said environmental lawmakers like Silva are highly skilled and have a beneficial impact. I’m talking about the possibility of receiving
Political analysts said the left fought hard in Wednesday’s parliamentary elections, as center-right and center-right parties lost seats to Bolsonaro’s far-right party.
Politically to the left of Lula’s Labor Party, the Liberal Socialist Party (PSOL) rose four to a record 12 seats.
The PSOL has been the staunchest critic of Bolsonaro’s environmental policies.
Among the PSOL winners are indigenous women Sonia Guajajala and Celia Zakriava. Joenia Wapichana, the only indigenous person in Congress prior to her election, failed to win re-election.
“There are 150 bills in Congress that are bad in terms of indigenous rights,” said Cleber Caripuna, executive coordinator of the Brazilian Association of Indigenous Peoples (APIB), which represents many of Brazil’s 900,000 indigenous people. There are more. ”He said.
“Our struggle is to derail these anti-indigenous bills,” Kalipuna said.
Experts and polls say Lula could win, but Saraiba said Bolsonaro cannot be ruled out.
“Lula will probably win, but I don’t think it’s an absolute certainty. The great victory of the far-right candidate in the parliamentary elections will give impetus to Bolsonaro’s campaign,” Saraiba said.
A Bolsonaro victory would mean the end of the Brazilian Amazon, Saraiva said. “This regime is clearly an accomplice to deforestation,” he added.
(Reporter by Fabio Teixeira and Andre Cabette Fabio, translated by Eacleren)
